LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

_&Tm 

^hap. Copyright No. 

SheliU.]-'--. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Faith Building 



By 



J 



WILLIAM P. MERRILL 

Pastor of the Sixth Presbyterian Church 
Chicago, 111. 



OCT 3 



Philadelphia : 

Presbyterian Board of Publication 

and Sabbath-school Work 

1896 



I 



*tt 



Copyright, 1896, by 
THE TRUSTEES OF THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD 
OF PUBLICATION AND SABBATH- 
SCHOOL WORK. 



The J 

of Com; 



WASHINGTON 



TO the earnest, honest young people of our 
day, who are doubtful in the midst of 
their faith, and faithful in the midst of their 
doubt, these thoughts are given by one of 
their brothers. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

I. Dealing with Doubt. . . 7 

II. The One Foundation. . . 25. 

III. The One Truth . . . .43 

IV. The One Duty . . . . 5S 
V. The Conditions of Progress . 67 



I. 

DEALING WITH DOUBT. 

I HERE was a man who built a house for 
himself. He paid careful attention to every 
detail of it. He saw that the rubbish 
and earth were cleared away till a solid 
foundation could be laid; then he watched 
the stones as they were put in place ; he 
studied the plans and saw that they were 
carried out. And so at last he had a house 
that was safe, convenient and satisfactory. 
He was a wise man. 

There was another man who had a house 
to live in, which belonged to him as truly as 
the house first mentioned belonged to the 
man who built it. And yet he did not build 
it, or see it erected. His father had lived in 
it, and his father's father. It was well-built, 
substantial ; it had stood the test of time. 
The man who owned it was thoroughly sat- 
isfied with it; he felt sure it was in good 
condition. Sometimes when he saw a new 
house going up, he would wonder whether 
that old dwelling of his was all right, 
whether it might not be better to build a 

7 



Faith Building. 

new one. But such thoughts would quickly 
go, for he knew what his house was, and he 
would not tear it down just because it was 
old. He said often to himself, "I would 
rather have that than one of the new dwell- 
ings, for it has been tested thoroughly.' ' He, 
too, was a wise man. 

Then there was a third man. He also 
had a house to live in which was his. And 
yet he never felt that it was his. His father 
and grandfather had lived in it ; it was well- 
built, substantial ; it was almost exactly like 
his neighbor's house. And yet he never 
felt sure of it; he did not know just how it 
had stood the test of time. And so at last 
he had a thorough inspection made. He 
went down and saw what the foundations 
were, and how they were laid. He saw 
how the house was built upon the founda- 
tion. Parts of the structure he had torn 
down and built up again. It was not so very 
different when he finished; it was really no 
safer and no better, but it suited him better, 
it was more truly his own, and he was now 
sure that it was safe and secure. He too was 
a wise man. 

All this is a parable about faith. Does 
it need interpretation ? Some men build 
their own belief. Most of us get our faith 
ready made. It meets our needs, it satisfies 

8 



Dealing with Doubt. 

our intellects and our hearts. And some 
inherit their faith, yet are not quite satisfied 
with it. They want to test the foundations, 
and see how the rest is built. They cannot 
be quite secure till they know for themselves. 
Each class is wise. If the faith you have 
inherited can satisfy you, then rest in it and 
be happy ; if it does not, then do not hesi- 
tate to question it, test it, and find out 
whether it is really secure. 

These words are not for the large number 
who are in the second class; they are for 
those who are seeking to form, or to re-form, 
their faith. They are not for the ninety and 
nine who are secure in their faith, but for the 
one who is wandering in doubt. How can 
we form a Christian faith? Many earnest 
souls are asking that question. Many who 
would not let others know it are asking 
themselves, " How can I make for myself a 
belief that shall be real and substantial to 
me, to which I can trust because I know it is 
trustworthy?" There are not a few earnest 
souls who are unsettled. That is not alto- 
gether bad. In an unsettled liquid, all the 
material is present. It only has not as yet 
taken shape and solidified. But the liquid 
is cloudy till its contents do settle ; and the 
sooner this happens the sooner it will be 
clear and bright. It may be well for one 

9 



Faith Building. 

who has been through that very experience 
in which faith and unfaith strangely struggle 
together, and old thoughts and beliefs are 
put to severe tests, in which the old struc- 
ture is almost altogether torn down and then 
slowly rebuilt, to be at last not so very dif- 
ferent in form from what it was before, yet 
mightily different in reality to the man who 
has seen it built and so can trust it, it may be 
well for one who has gone through that ex- 
perience, and has grown from the condition 
in which many things were half-certain, to 
the state in which some things are sure as 
life itself, to tell some of the simple things 
that he learned, and how he built up a faith 
which, whatever its defects may be, is at 
any rate securely founded and real. There 
are many Christians in doubt. They have a 
practical faith, but they are uncertain about 
it. They believe and yet they do not be- 
lieve. This is a state of mind that is hard 
to endure. If everything were black or 
white, it would be easy for us to discrimi- 
nate ; but the trouble is there are so many 
shades of gray. We cannot always say, 
this man, this thing, is good, and that bad. 
There is some good in the bad, and some 
bad in the good. So with our belief. We 
cannot always say positively, " I believe 
this," and, just as positively, " I do not be- 



Dealing with Doubt. 

lieve that." Often we do not know. We 
believe, and yet we cry out for help in our 
unbelief. We are sure enough to act, and 
yet, after all, the questions come up, " How 
am I sure?" "What does my faith really 
rest upon ?" " Do I believe just because I 
have been told to?" " This point and that 
I accept as true, but does it really mean 
anything to me?" Such questions arise 
again and again. What shall we do with 
them? 

Now I think there is a tendency in our 
minds to teach others, and to say to our- 
selves, that such doubts are sinful ; that we 
ought to put them out of the way as danger- 
ous ; that they are suggestions of the devil. 

« You say, but with no touch of scorn, 
Sweet-hearted you, whose light blue eyes 
Are tender over drowning flies, 
You tell me doubt is devil-born." 

Is this the way in which we should treat 
these questionings ? No, there is a better 
way. Let those who are well-satisfied with 
their faith rest in it, and be happy. We are 
glad they can be. But some of us cannot 
be happy in a faith of which we are not per- 
sonally certain, any more than we could be 
at peace in a house of the strength and se- 



Faith Building. 

curity of which we felt doubtful. Let us 
first of all look this matter of doubt squarely 
in the face, see what it is, and what we ought 
to do with it. 

There are three varieties of doubt, cor- 
responding to the three great parts of our 
nature. We may have a clear faith in one 
part of our nature combined with a cloudy 
faith in another. 

First of all is Moral Doubt. Not many 
men fall into that, at least not many earnest 
men. It is the worst and hardest of all the 
kinds of unbelief. I mean by it the doubt 
that right is right, and wrong wrong, the los- 
ing of moral distinctions; the belief that 
practically right and wrong are matters of 
little consequence. To put it in the strong 
words of Frederick Robertson, the first arti- 
cle of faith is that it must be right to do 
right. If a man doubts that, it is hard for 
any truth to reach him. A man who does 
not cling to the right as the thing for him to 
do whatever comes, cannot even start to 
build a character. 

This kind of doubt is almost always the 
result of sin, of some sin that defies the con- 
science and hardens it. Tennyson gives a 
wonderful example of it in the " Vision of 
Sin." The youth whom he there describes 
sees no virtue in any one or anything ; he 



Dealing with Doubt. 

sneers at the thought of there being any- 
thing really good, or really worth struggling 
for. Pilate is an example of this moral 
doubt. "What is truth?" he asked. He 
had lived such a life of untruth that he 
did not believe there was such a thing as 
truth, or if there was, he did not think it of 
any importance. He had a half-pity, half- 
contempt for this young Galilean country 
teacher who was ready to give his life for 
the truth. 

This moral doubt may be combined with 
an intellectual faith ; but there is no value in 
the clearest mental faith where this moral 
unbelief goes along with it. One whose life 
is willfully dishonest towards his own con- 
science cannot build a true strong faith, any 
more than one can build a true and strong 
house, if he holds his line persistently out of 
plumb and then builds by that. 

If you have such doubt as that, you must 
learn and realize the tremendous fact that 
moral doubt kills the soul. The only hope 
of safety and progress in your faith and life 
lies in your getting rid of moral doubt 
through getting full of moral faith. But 
most of those to whom these words are given 
are morally in earnest ; they believe in right 
living ; they mean to live rightly ; they ear- 
nestly try to live rightly, even though they 
13 



Faith Building. 

are in the dark about many things. And so 
I speak of this first form of doubt chiefly to 
give a word of cheer. For I believe it is the 
only kind that is permanently hurtful, the 
only kind that is always evil, the only kind 
against which we ought to shut our nature 
tightly. If ever the suggestion comes to you 
to ignore the difference between right and 
wrong, kill it as you would a poisonous 
snake. But any one who persistently clings 
to his moral faith has a right to hope for 
the full light. 

The second form of uncertainty is Intel- 
lectual Doubt. This is where many find 
trouble. I mean uncertainty as to what is 
true, and as to how we know what is true. 
Our time affords good soil for such doubt to 
flourish in. There are many new theories 
abroad ; it is a time of study and discovery. 
New light has broken upon men's minds, 
and it takes time for the old faith and the 
new truth to adjust themselves the one to the 
other. There are new ideas, possibly true, 
possibly false, certainly persistent, about 
God, about the Bible, about Christ and his 
mission. Every great fact of the Christian 
religion is thus questioned and debated, and 
it is but natural that those who think should 
be in a state of uncertainty on one point 
and another. Perhaps their life is just as 
14 



Dealing with Doubt. 

good as ever, perhaps God sees that their 
faith is as real ; but to them their faith seems- 
insecure ; they do not know upon what it 
rests, and they want to know. " What shall 
I believe ? I used to receive all that was 
said about all these points with implicit 
faith. I cannot do that now. I want to be- 
lieve because I see the truth." More men 
and women are thinking for themselves now 
than there have ever been before ; and yet 
they have perhaps less time to do their 
thinking than ever before. That means un- 
certainty and darkness to some of them, 
quite often to the most earnest and honest of 
them. 

Now this intellectual doubt may be com- 
bined with a real earnest, practical faith. 
The one who is thus unsettled about the 
truth often goes on and works for what he 
does know ; works for Christ, even while he 
is wondering about his claims ; works for the 
kingdom of God, even while uncertain 
about the reality of it. Some of the most 
faithful church workers I have ever known 
have confessed to me that they had this kind 
of doubt, that they felt sure of little of what 
they were supposed to believe. That is not 
strange. Among the twelve whom Jesus 
selected to be his apostles, there was one 
who had this intellectual doubt, who suffered 
*5 



Faith Building. 

from it all through his history, so far as we 
can trace it. When Jesus was about to go 
to raise Lazarus from the dead, Thomas 
said : " Let us also go, that we may die with 
him." He was faithful to Jesus, ready to 
die with him ; and yet he was very doubtful 
about the wisdom of Jesus' going to that 
place. He was in the dark mentally, even 
though his practical faith was stronger than 
that of any other of the twelve. This com- 
bination is not hopeless by any means. 
Often the man who is full of practical trust, 
and almost in despair intellectually, if he 
only goes on, will reach a clearer faith. 
Thomas did. Intellectual doubt, if honest 
and sincere, is often only a step towards a 
better and higher faith. One who is on a 
peak of the mountain has to go down first, if 
lie would stand at last upon a higher peak. 
Every step may lead him into a thicker fog, 
at first, but every step also brings him nearer 
to the greater height and the clearer air. 

And yet, granting all this, while mental 
doubt is not hopeless, while it is often a step 
towards the light, we ought to make it truly 
a step ; we ought earnestly to desire to get 
rid of it, to get a firm, simple, strong, mental 
faith, that shall give us security and happi- 
ness in our religious thinking. Intellectual 
faith is not the main thing, but it is a thing 

16 



Dealing with Doubt. 

that means much. To have a simple, 
strong creed, that is really your own, made 
your own by conquest, which you believe with 
all your mind, is an element of power and 
of peace the value of which it would be hard 
to overestimate. Find some truths which 
are as sure as life itself, and live by them ; 
then you will find peace. 

There is one more kind of doubt of which 
to speak. We may call it Spiritual Uncer- 
tainty. I mean by this, the experience of 
one who finds it hard to make his faith real 
and living. He believes strongly enough, 
perhaps ; he lives practically by what he be- 
lieves. Yet spiritually he is dead. He does 
not feel the presence of God as a real help 
and a real fact in his life. God is not real 
to him, as his friends are. There is not 
much use or value in prayer for him, for he 
does not feel that it takes him into the pres- 
ence of any real person. He knows that 
spiritual realities are in the world, but he 
cannot realize them. There are many Chris- 
tians in this day who are in something of 
that condition. They believe the truths of 
the Christian religion when they think about 
them ; their reason accepts them ; they 
work earnestly for the right : but God and 
Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and the eternal 
life, are thoughts to them, not realities*, 
17 



Faith Building. 

Their spiritual side is cold, almost dead. It 
is not hard to see why this is so. Our time 
has seen a great cultivation of the powers 
that deal with the world of matter. Charles 
Darwin, who is more than any other man 
responsible for the new impulse given to 
thought, confessed that he had never had 
time to give to the spiritual side of his na- 
ture. The realistic tendency is strong, in 
science, in fiction, in philosophy, in preach- 
ing. All this emphasis on the seen makes it 
hard to realize the unseen, the ideal, the 
eternal. 

It hurts us to have such doubt as this, even 
when with it there goes a mental correctness 
and moral earnestness. The one who lacks 
spiritual faith misses the great inspiration to 
true and noble living. One whose spiritual 
vision is weak and poor may get along, and 
live a true, honest, manly life. But it will be 
a hard task ; his life will miss much of the 
happiness and inspiration which Christ came 
to bring into the religious life of man. We 
ought to want, to cry out for, earnestly to 
work for, a strong, true spiritual faith. 

What shall we do with such doubts ? The 
way to get rid of doubt is to get full of faith. 
As we try, step by step, to see the foundations 
of a solid belief, we shall be, at the same time, 
showing the way to get rid of uncertainty. 

i3 



Dealing with Doubt. 

But it is necessary to dig down and clear 
away before we begin to lay the stones of our 
building. So let us give a thought to the 
first steps from doubt to faith, the way to 
deal with doubt at the outset. Three simple 
things are to be said here. 

First, face your doubts squarely ; look 
them in the face 

I believe most of those who are unsettled 
need this advice. They tend to hide their 
doubt away, and try not to think of it. But 
that is the worst possible thing to do with it. 
It may be wrong sometimes to doubt ; but it 
is certainly wrong to keep your doubt always 
in the dark because you are afraid to look at 
it. It may be hard to face some questions ; 
it certainly is hard and wearing and insecure 
to dodge and avoid these questions because 
they are troublesome. It is true that ugly 
things show just as they are in the light, but 
it is just as true that they are worse in the 
dark, because they do not show what they 
are. To try to get rid of doubt by hiding it 
away, is like trying to get rid of sorrow, or 
of hunger, by not thinking of it. This may 
do for a while, but sooner or later the feeling 
comes back again, with redoubled energy. 

Tennyson gives an inspiring thought in 
the stanzas which follow the one quoted a 
few pages back : 

19 



Faith Building. 

" I know not. — One at least I knew, 
In many a subtle question versed, 
Who touched a jarring lyre at first, 

But ever strove to make it true. 

Perplexed in faith, but pure in deeds, 
At last he beat his music out. 
There lives more faith in honest doubt, 

Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

He fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
He would not make his judgment blind, 
He faced the spectres of the mind, 

And laid them ; thus he came at length 

To find a stronger faith his own." 

Yes, there is a faith in honest doubt, a faith 
that will some time lead to God if it be fol- 
lowed. But it must be honest doubt, man- 
fully met, fought and struggled with as an 
enemy ; not kept in secret and enjoyed; not 
kept to indulge as an intellectual dissipation ; 
not avoided or locked up for fear of facing 
it ; but met as the manly man always meets 
hard facts and hard questions, with strength, 
and courage, and honesty. Do not try to 
deceive yourself into faith. Face your doubt, 
and see just what it is. 

A second step towards faith is a desire to 
believe. Perhaps you cannot have a true, 
strong faith. But do you want to have it ? 
That is one of the first things. Would you 
like to believe strongly and truly ? Would 



Dealing with Doubt. 

you like to have a positive faith and a work- 
ing realization of the unseen and eternal ? 
If you do want this, there is the greatest 
hope and help for you. For intellectual and 
spiritual faith is one of those things of which 
the promise is sure, "Ask and ye shall re- 
ceive.* ' The man who really wants it will get 
it, if he wants it enough to work and wait. 
Think what faith is, what it has done, what 
it can do. What a power it is! What a 
security it brings ! What happiness it se- 
cures ! Do you not want it ? 

The third step towards the beginning of a 
true faith is that you bring your very unbe- 
lief to God, if you can. You know there is 
some great Power without you. Bring your 
mental or spiritual doubt to him. Do not 
try to pray to him as a man of faith ought 
to pray. If you do not believe this or that 
about God, it is not right to pray to him as if 
you did believe it. If you do not feel him 
as a Reality, as a Friend, it is wrong to pray 
to him as if you did, because you think 
that you ought to feel in that way ; but come 
to him honestly. Bring your mental doubts 
to him and your spiritual coldness. Cry to 
him, " O God, I do not believe this or that 
part of what men tell me is the truth ; I am 
not sure of thy presence, not sure of thy love, 
not sure of thy response to me; I do not 



Faith Building. 

feel that thou art real to me as earthly- 
things are. But, O God, I want to know 
these things and to feel in this way. I bring 
my unbelief to thee ; help me, O God." 
Do you remember the prayer of the man 
who had gotten down into the depths of 
doubt, " O God, if there be a God, save my 
soul, if I have a soul ?" Even that prayer is 
better than trying to pray as one ought to if 
he had a full faith. 

" This is my creed ; 
This be my deed : 
Faith, or a doubt, 
I shall speak out, 
And hide not my heart." 

Be honest with yourself, with your doubt, 
with God. That is the prerequisite to any 
true and real faith, mental or spiritual. If 
you thus face your doubts, you will be walk- 
ing towards a true, real and secure faith. 
Stand up to your questionings and uncer- 
tainties, find out what they really are, earn- 
estly want to get rid of them, and then bring 
them to God with a cry for help, and you will 
be helped, slowly but surely, out of the dark- 
ness into his marvelous light. Faith and 
unfaith may be struggling together in you. 
Do not bring the one to God and hide the 
other away. Bring them both. Cry, "Lord, 



Dealing with Doubt. 

I believe ; help thou mine unbelief." Then 
even though you have gone so short a way 
towards the true faith, into your darkness 
will come a little ray of that light from God 
that shines for the just man, the honest 
man, and makes his path like the shining 
light, that shineth more and more unto the 
perfect day. 



23 



II. 

THE ONE FOUNDATION. 

IN OT long ago I passed a place where men 
had dug down deep in preparation for put- 
ting up a large building. But they did not 
begin work at once when they had reached 
the required depth. They first drove great 
piles into the ground, till they had filled up 
the space with them. Then sometime after, 
as I went by, they were placing in position 
the masses of steel and stone ; and the 
building was rising, slowly but firmly, be- 
cause there was something below that would 
hold. That is what we want in our faith, 
something beneath that will hold. What 
one fact are we to place at the bottom of our 
religious thinking and feeling on which to 
base a true faith ? The famous French phi- 
losopher started with one fact of conscious- 
ness, and on that he constructed a rational 
philosophy of the universe. If there is one 
fact we can find, not a mere theory, but 
something we accept just because " we know 
not something which is fact as much," then 
25 



Faith Building. 

we have a firm foundation for belief. Is 
there such a foundation for Christian faith? 
Yes ; we find it in the Person and Character 
of Jesus of Nazareth. There is the one fact 
upon which all true Christian faith rests. 

It may at first be disappointing to those 
who are eagerly wanting to find something 
for faith to rest upon, to be told that that 
something is found in the character of Jesus 
as given in the gospels. You may answer 
me, "You are calling for faith in that basis 
which you lay. Here am I, trying to find a 
starting-point for believing something, and 
you call upon me to believe in two things at 
the very outset : in Jesus Christ and in the 
gospels. Of course, if I could have faith in 
them, I would have a sound Christian be- 
lief. But it is not fair to make me accept 
them at the start, when what I am seeking is 
the way whereby I can come to accept them 
at the end." 

But natural as this objection may seem, it 
will disappear when you understand what it 
is that I am really urging. When I say that 
you can find the one fact upon which Christ- 
ian faith may rest in the Character and Per- 
son of Jesus of Nazareth, I am not asking 
you to believe that he was divine ; I am not 
asking that you should believe anything at 
all about him. Still less am I demanding 
26 



The One Foundation. 

that you should accept the gospels as in- 
spired. I am not urging you to believe any- 
thing at all about him or about the books 
that present him to you. I am merely ask- 
ing you to look at him just as he was and 
ask yourself what his life means. It is not 
faith I am calling for ; it is the simple con- 
sideration of a fact. 

It is a simple matter of history that there 
was a man once in Syria, whose name was 
Jesus of Nazareth. All that after-ages have 
made of him, all the books that have been 
written, and the creeds that have been 
formed and the thoughts that have been de- 
veloped about him, his Person and his 
work, cannot alter that fact in the least par- 
ticle. It is a mere matter of history that 
Jesus lived and died there in Palestine many 
years ago. It does not take any faith to see 
that; you cannot help seeing it. Actually 
there was a man once of that name who 
lived the same kind of life that I live. He 
knew hunger and want, sorrow and joy, dis- 
appointment and anticipation, peace and 
trouble, success and failure, as I know them. 
He ate and drank and talked and worked as 
I do, as my neighbor does, as every son of 
man has to do. Can we not realize that 
fact? 

But simple matter of fact that it is, we find 



Faith Building. 

it hard to realize, though we cannot help see- 
ing, that it is true. The thoughts of men 
about that life of Jesus have been such as 
tend to take it away from the sphere in 
which your life and mine are lived and thus 
to impart an unreality to it. There was 
once a saw-mill that was placed on the topj 
of a very steep hill. It caught the breeze 
magnificently, but they could not get the 
logs up to it to be trimmed. We often ele- 
vate religion till men cannot get at it. The 
church has sometimes lifted up Jesus in such 
a way as to put him out of men's reach. 
If we could only pick up the gospels and 
read them as new ! If we had never heard 
of Jesus, and suddenly this account of his 
life appeared, how it would appeal to us, 
how we would read and reread the book 
and wonder at the beauty and charm of its 
story. Now we want to do something of 
that kind for ourselves by taking up the gos- 
pels simply as a record of a life that a man 
actually lived. Think what you may about 
the wonderful parts of the gospel story; 
leave them out for a while and simply read 
the life of Jesus of Nazareth. For whatever 
may be true or false about him, whatever 
may be doubtful or mystical, this is certain : 
there was such a man as Jesus, and he 
lived, and loved, and died, as all men do., 
28 



The One Foundation. 

Another fact: He made a great impres- 
sion upon his friends. They loved him 
passionately, they looked up to him, they 
followed him with eager devotion. After 
death had taken him from them, they still 
loved him and his thoughts and messages, 
and they went about telling others of the 
Teacher they loved. One of those who had 
been with him, made a collection of his 
sayings, which was afterwards made into a 
book; another, his most intimate friend, 
told his own thoughts about "the Master,*' as 
they loved to call him ; told them with lov- 
ing insight and mystic tenderness. Two 
others, who had not known him personally, 
found out what they could from those who 
had seen him and then drew up narratives 
of his life based on what his friends thought 
about him and said of him. And thus it 
came to pass that four little pamphlets have 
come to us which tell of the life of that man 
Jesus who made our era. They are all of 
them incomplete, these four little booklets ; 
they are fragmentary, there is much in one 
which is in another. They do not profess to 
give his life logically or perfectly ; they sim- 
ply give some facts about him and some 
thoughts which he spoke and taught. That 
is all ; and yet they give a wonderfully satis- 
factory view of him. I do not believe there 
29 



Faith Building. 

has ever been a biography written which, 
for excellence of portraiture alone, could 
compare with these four little books ; nor do 
I believe there is a more striking and indi- 
vidual character brought out anywhere in 
history or fiction than the character of Jesus 
as given by these four men. For they sim- 
ply wrote what they had seen and what they 
knew without trying to arrange it methodic- 
ally or to secure literary effect. 

Now all this of which we have been speak- 
ing does not take any faith at all. It merely 
takes the ability to see a fact of history ; and 
any one can do that. These are simple mat- 
ters of actual happening. There are the 
books, and in them is the picture of the man. 
Both are real. Whatever doubts you may 
have about this or that point in the creed, 
whatever you may think about the divine 
nature of Christ, or about anything else, these 
cannot keep you from acknowledging that 
the man Jesus did live, and that in these 
books we have the picture of him drawn by 
his friends. Does it take any faith for you 
to read the Life of Lincoln as told by his sec- 
retaries ? Not a bit. You merely say, there 
was such a man, and this book is founded on 
facts, substantially, at any rate. Now that 
is what I ask you to do with this life and 
these books. Take these four little volumes 
30 



The One Foundation. 

and read them in that way. Get some sympa- 
thetic life of Jesus, such as " Jesus, the Car- 
penter of Nazareth,'* and read it through, so 
that it may give you a fresh idea of the human 
life that was lived there. Take Matthew and 
Luke and read them through, trying to 
realize that it is the life of an actual man you 
are reading, and not a theological treatise. 
In this way come to know the historic person, 
the man who really lived. He certainly was 
a great man ; and it is worth your while to 
know his life for that reason, even if you 
never see in him anything more than a great 
man. 

Now if you will do this (and it is the way, 
I believe, to start a true Christian faith), if 
you will thus read the life of Jesus, and get to 
know it, you will find much, I cannot tell 
just what. Every one of us finds something 
new in the life of Jesus. But just as sure as 
the daylight comes with the sunrise, so sure 
will be your finding of one fact, if you read 
the life of Jesus of Nazareth. You may leave 
out what you will that is told about him ; you 
may refuse to believe the wonderful parts of 
his story if you will ; you may keep only the 
barest facts that are told, the things you can- 
not help taking for true ; yet you will come 
out from your reading and study with this at 
any rate, this that every reader of the 
3* 



Faith Building. 

gospels finds, this that no one has ever 
denied, however much he may have wanted 
to, this that is so much matter of fact that it 
cannot be denied, that we find in him the 
most perfect life that ever has been lived. 

What do we mean by that ? I mean that 
we find in Jesus as his life is set forth in the 
gospel story the highest ideal, most fully 
realized. 

We find in him the highest ideal. Take 
his words and look at the ideal of life and 
character that is in them. What a lofty one ! 
How it towers above all that men had 
thought or seen before ! How it towers above 
all that men have thought and taught since ! 
The bitterest opponents of Christianity 
always take pains to say that they do not at- 
tack Christ, that they have only reverence 
for his life and ideals. The worst enemies of 
the church revere the man of Galilee. Take 
that ideal of holiness, of purity, of love, of 
sacrifice, of truthfulness, of independence, 
and see where you can find one to match it. 
Other men have taught great things, only to 
have their disqiples go further ; no disciple 
has ever gone beyond Jesus. How poor all 
other ideals beside his ! Plato was a lofty 
mind ; yet there is much that is savage about 
his ideals when placed side by side with 
those of Jesus. He thought, for example, 
32 



The One Foundation. 

that the ideal State would kill off the sickly 
children. 

See what has come out of that ideal of life 
which came in with Jesus. Every good 
movement among the civilized nations, their 
very civilization, all that was good in 
chivalry, in the church, in the Protestant 
movement, in the care for the helpless, in 
the growth of the spirit of humanity, all these 
have come from the ideal which Jesus had. 
And apart from the thought of its results, 
what a high ideal it was in itself! Compare 
your principles with those of Jesus. The 
nineteenth century is one of great thought 
and high achievement; yet how do your 
ideals compare with those of this simple 
peasant-teacher of the first century ? 

But we find in Jesus also the fullest realiza- 
tion of the ideal the world has ever seen. 
How seldom do we find a man who can both 
see truly and act as he sees ! The poet writes 
" A man's a man for a' that," and then eats 
his heart out because the rich do not flatter 
him enough. The great thinker of our time- 
inveighs against writing for money and then 
leaves a fortune behind him. So it often 
goes ; the men of ideals are not always, not 
often, the men of real attainment. But in 
Jesus we find not only the clearest and high- 
est ideal, we find also the most perfect reali- 

33 



Faith Building. 

zation of it. He not only taught ; he showed 
what character should be. His life was so 
transparent that men could see it through and 
through, and it was all clear and beautiful. 
What a wonderful thing, that he could carry- 
out so perfectly what he saw so accurately. 
The greatest man of Greece, Socrates, the 
man of high aims and great achievement, 
when the painter represented him with evil 
passion showing in his face, said, " Let it be; 
you have painted Socrates as he is." We 
admire him for that touch of humility ; but 
Jesus could not say such a thing as that. 
The very humble confession of sin and weak- 
ness and imperfection which in other men is 
a glory and a crown to their character, we 
instinctively feel in him would be a blemish. 
That life which saw the ideal truth as no one 
else ever did, also lived out that ideal truth 
as no one else ever did. And thus it was 
the most perfect life; for perfect living is 
simply true thought faithfully translated into 
action. 

Still we are talking about facts, that are so 
evident that you cannot help seeing that 
they are true. This man Jesus lived. These 
books tell about him, and they show that he 
was the most perfect life that ever lived. 
These facts bring to you a question for solu- 
tion. They ask of you with insistence, 

34 



The One Foundation. 

What are you going to do with that Person, 
that Character ? How are you going to ex- 
plain him ? It is not a piece of fiction, which 
you can admire and then let go as a dream 
of some wise and tender writer. It is a life 
that was lived as yours is, and mine. A man 
literally lived a life that was exactly like 
yours and mine, except that it was ideal in 
its thinking and acting, whereas you and I 
stumble along. There it is, a part of the life 
of this world. The whole world stands wait- 
ing for you to explain it. Your heart and 
mind cry out for something to make less 
dark to you all this that lies around you, this 
mystery of life and death and love and sor- 
row. And in the very centre of it all stands 
this character of Jesus of Nazareth, and 
asks, " What will you do with Jesus which is 
called Christ?" Answer that question, and 
you will find a Christian faith beginning or 
begun. 

How will you account for his having this 
high ideal? Whence did he get it? How 
different, utterly, from anything in his own 
time or before him. The wisest men of his 
day could not have given it to him, if he 
could have talked with them all. And he 
did not know a single one of the wise men of 
his day. He never read a book except the 
old Hebrew documents. He never had any 

35 



Faith Building. 

teacher but his own thoughts ; he had no 
education, no advantages. The sneering 
query of the Pharisees, " How hath this man 
knowledge of letters having never learned ?" 
is a question we may ask in all seriousness, 
for it presents a problem that demands solu- 
tion. How did that man, how could that 
man, brought up in the shop of a carpenter, 
get hold of the only perfect ideal the world 
has ever known, that which the greatest 
thinkers and poets and philosophers of the 
world had been striving for in vain ? Where 
did it come from ? You with all the centuries 
of training back of you have still lower ideals 
than he had. How did he have the perfect 
ideal, with nothing in the past to construct 
it from ? What is your answer to that ques- 
tion? 

And how was he able to realize it ? Whence 
did he get the power to live up to his high 
ideal ? How could he succeed where other 
men fail ? How often we excuse a man for 
failure to reach a high ideal, because he had 
so little early training. Think of the environ- 
ment ot Jesus and then say how it happened 
that he always lived up to his ideal. What 
are you going to say of that life, what are you 
going to do with it ? It stands and calls 
upon you to explain it. It is not a doctrine, 
or a theory, or a bit of fiction. It is an actual 
3 6 



The One Foundation. 

man's life, lived here on this earth, lived 
amid the surroundings that hem in your life 
and mine ; you cannot deny it ; it is a mere 
matter of fact in history. What will you do 
with it ? 

Two men whom I knew very well were 
once talking together. One of them was a 
decided Christian, the other was a pro- 
nounced unbeliever. The latter was saying^ 
as he often did, that religion was a mere 
theory with nothing to rest upon ; that Chris- 
tians only deluded themselves into believing 
they believed. The other answered, " But 
what do you do with Christ?" The unbe- 
liever replied at once that that was easy 
enough to account for ; men have to, or think 
they have to, worship something, and so it 
was easy for them to take the character of 
Jesus of Nazareth, and build stories of 
miraculous occurrences about it, and so lift 
it up into a divine image to worship. His 
friend answered, " But how do you account 
for Jesus of Nazareth ?" After a long pause, 
the other said, in a low voice, " I can't 
account for him." 

For any one who really faces the facts of 
the life of Jesus there is only one answer 
that meets the facts squarely. Either Jesus 
Christ was God-sent to be our leader, or else 
there is no such thing as God or goodness. 

37 



Faith Building. 

You may call him divine or human, you 
may believe this, or deny that about him ; 
but this you must see, if you accept the facts : 
If there is any goodness in that which is 
good, any truth in the world at all, then 
Jesus was a true leader of men in their 
search for God. No other answer is possible. 
Unless this life is all a hideous dream, un- 
less chance rules all things, and the world 
has misshapen itself by brute force and 
blind luck, unless goodness and truth and 
beauty are only things we have invented to 
delude ourselves with, then Jesus was either 
a man whom God taught or he was God 
himself. If you believe in progress at all, if 
you feel that goodness and purity and no- 
bility, and all for which men have been 
reaching out are the most real of things, 
then what are you going to say of the great 
force in that progress, the best, the purest, 
the noblest that the world has seen in the 
way of living? Fairbairn puts it strongly 
enough to be true : " The wonderful thing in 
the story is, that what in the abstract would 
seem impossible romance is in reality the 
most sober fact ; while out of the story, when 
viewed in relation to the course of human 
development, rises for philosophy the prob- 
lem, Can he, so mean in life, so illustrious in 
history, stand where he does by chance ? " 
38 



The One Foundation. 

The facts say to you, Either Jesus of Naza- 
reth was a man to whom God gave his truth 
and his Spirit for the help of all men, or else 
he was divine. Either of these positions is 
enough to base a Christian faith upon. Sup- 
pose you take the first. Suppose you say, 
Jesus was a man like myself, to whom God 
gave his truth as he did not to others, and 
who through the help of the Spirit of God 
lived a perfect life. Then how strongly does 
the lesson come to you, If he, a man, lived 
that kind of life, you, a man like him, can 
live that kind of life too. He is a worthy 
teacher and leader. You can rest upon his 
words and his life ; they show what life is, 
and what truth is. 

"Christ, some one says, was human as we are; 
No judge eyes us from heaven, our sin to scan. 
Was Christ a man like us ? Ah, let us try 
If we, then, too can be such men as he." 

If you take the other possible answer, and 
say, He was divine, then all the more worthy 
is he of your following him. If he was God, 
and came here and lived a human life, then 
it shows the dignity of human life in the 
sight of God, it shows the wish God has that 
we might live nobly and truly, it shows that 
a divine ideal and divine power are ours to 
use in living as Christ did. Whichever 

39 



Faith Building. 

answer you give, whether you say, He 
was a man, or, He was God, in either case 
you have a firm fact for faith to found itself 
upon. If he was a man like you, you can 
be a man like him. If he was God, then 
you can follow him and find help in him. 

Here then is the one fact upon which a 
true, sound Christian faith can rest. " Other 
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, 
which is, Christ Jesus." There stands the 
life. It is there as a matter of literary and 
historical record. What are you to do with 
it ? How are you to explain it ? It is a sober 
fact that he lived, that he had that ideal, that 
he realised it. Was he mistaken in his ideal ? 
Then the whole world is wrong, and we 
cannot believe in anything, and all our faith 
in love and beauty and goodness and truth 
is but a child's belief in fairy tales. Was he 
right in that ideal ? Then I can trust him to 
tell me the truth, and can trust his words and 
life to show me the true ideal. How did he 
get the power to live such a life ? Was he a 
man with powers and capacities like mine ? 
Then God must have helped him and he can 
help me the same way. Was he divine ? 
Then all the more can and will he help me. 
If you can only once be brought face to face 
with Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus of the gospels, 
so that you will see and know his life for your- 
40 



The One Foundation. 

self, your faith will be started on the path 
which leads without fail to God and his eter- 
nal truth. Take Jesus, and account for him, 
and you have a basis for faith. And the 
more you try to realize that he was a man, 
the surer you will be that God was with and 
in him. The foundation of faith is in Jesus, 
the Man of Nazareth. I take that life and lay 
it as a foundation-stone, as one fact which I 
know, which I cannot deny if I would. And 
that fact makes him my leader. Not that I 
yet believe that he is divine. Not that I be- 
lieve anything about it, at the start. I simply 
take the facts about him, and I say, they can- 
not mean anything else than that he is a true 
Leader ; and whatever he be, I will follow him. 
" If Jesus Christ is a man — and only a man — I say 

That of all mankind I will cleave to him, and 
to him will I cleave aiway ; 

If Jesus Christ is a God — and the only God — 
I swear, 

I will follow him through heaven and hell, the 
earth, the sea, and the air." 

What we need is to get back to the simple 
reading of the gospels, and the simple sight of 
the character of Jesus. We need to know more 
of Jesus of Nazareth, who went about doing 
good, because God was with him. Then we 
shall have a rock on which to build a faith that 
shall be strong and beautiful and effective. 
41 



III. 

THE ONE TRUTH. 

We have laid the foundation, but the 
whole purpose of the foundation is that 
more may be built upon it. What shall we 
build on the one fact we have found as a 
basis for faith? If Christ is my Leader in 
the search for truth, what does he teach me ? 
He has much to say, many rules to give, 
many words for his follower to learn and 
obey. We cannot take up many of them. 
If we can get hold of one or two great, fun- 
damental thoughts in the teaching of Jesus, 
we shall have enough for faith to start with. 

There are two parts of life in which we 
especially need a Teacher. We need to 
know the one thing to believe, and the one 
thing to do ; the one truth, and the one duty. 
The main part of Kant's philosophy grew 
out of the two simple questions, What can I 
know ? and, What ought I to do ? Does 
Jesus answer these questions ? 

Jesus does give us one fundamental truth, 
to be believed. There can be no doubt as to 
what it is. Take ten unprejudiced men, of 

43 



Faith Building, 

any race or creed, or of no creed at all, and 
let them, after reading the four books of the 
life of Jesus, say what is the underlying idea 
in the mind of that teacher, and they would 
all agree. The one thing which was sure to 
Jesus, upon which his life and teaching 
rested, was the truth of the Fatherhood of 
God. 

That was the distinguishing mark of his 
teaching. Men had heard much about the 
Creator. Especially had the Jews heard the 
story of creation in so clear a way that they 
could not fail to know what their religion 
taught about it. They had had revealed to 
them the thought of the Providence of God, 
and that so clearly and strongly that the old 
Jews had a better conception of the presence 
of God in nature and daily life than many 
Christians of this day. But Jesus came to 
show to men, as it never had been dreamed 
of before, that God was their Father. Some 
of the Jews had seen that God had a Father's 
pity for those who feared him ; but the 
thought of the Fatherhood of God, as the 
relation he sustained towards all men, had 
never been brought into religious thought till 
Jesus came and taught it ; and through the 
teaching of it, he made religion a different 
force from that which it had been. 

Every part, eveiy stage of the revelation 

44 



The One Truth. 

in the Bible had its own name for God. 
Abraham knew him as the Almighty ; Moses 
as Jehovah ; David as the Lord of Hosts. 
And then Jesus came with the new name of 
Father ; and just as each name of God de- 
noted a conception of God which influenced 
the character of the men who held it, so 
when Jesus brought in the name " Father,' * 
it introduced a religion of love, for God is 
love, and we cannot worship God unless we 
serve Love. 

The thought of Fatherhood which Jesus 
introduced is more than the looking on God 
as the Father because he has created us. 
He is our Father, as Jesus thinks of it, not 
merely because he has made us, but because 
he has made us in his image, because he is 
essentially like us, we essentially like him. 
We are his children far more than the birds 
are. Jesus showed us how the Great Creator 
cared for everything he had made, so that 
not one bird could fall without the notice 
and care of the Father ; and then he asked, 
significantly, "Are ye not much better than 
they?" God cares more for men than for 
birds. Birds are his creatures, and therefore 
he cares for them ; men are his children, 
and therefore he loves them. Fatherhood 
implies kinship of nature, not merely crea- 
torship. The watchmaker is not the father 

45 



Faith Building. 

of the watch, though he is its maker. It is 
only by a figurative use of the term that we 
speak of an inventor as the father of his 
invention. But God is our Father in no 
figurative sense; his Fatherhood means 
similarity of nature, communion of nature, 
personal love on his part towards us, the 
possibility of personal love on our part 
towards him. 

Jesus explained his own life in terms of 
this one great idea. To him all life was doing 
the Father's will; all necessary waiting was 
waiting for the Father's time. He was God's 
Son. And if you read his words attentively, 
I think you will see what seems very plain to 
me as I read them, that Jesus called himself 
the Son of God not only through his divine 
nature, but through his human nature as 
well. He was Son of God because he was 
Son of man. Man is God's son, and there- 
fore the noblest and highest type of man 
would be most truly God's Son. Such seems 
often to be his thought. 

It is through this truth of the Fatherhood 
of God that he explains not his own life 
alone, but the whole life of man on the 
earth. God is the Father of all. He sends 
the sun to shine on the evil and the good 
alike; he sends rain on the just and the un- 
just. Men can find no higher motive for 
4 6 



The One Truth. 

love towards all men than the action and 
spirit of the Great Father towards all men, 
for he is kind to the unthankful and the evil. 
Why? Because they are his children. A 
ruler may let an evil subject go, may be con- 
tent to punish him. But a father can never 
let a child go. And God never loses hold of 
a soul. That is what Jesus made the basis 
for prayer. "When ye pray, say Father.'* 
That is the foundation of the most beautiful 
of his parables. There are few parts of the 
gospel that have brought more men and 
women back to God than that story of the 
Prodigal Son ; and it is not only because it 
shows our sinful life so wonderfully ; it is 
also and more truly because it shows the 
love of God the Father, as no one ever has 
seen it except the teacher God has sent. 
This thought of God's essential Fatherhood 
is the central thought of those wonderful 
words of Jesus in the last few chapters of the 
gospel according to John. Almost every 
other sentence has something about the 
Father, about his love, about how Jesus was 
going back to him. Thus from the first ser- 
mon in Galilee to the last discourse in Jeru- 
salem, the keynote of the thought and 
teaching of Jesus is this one great truth of God's 
Fatherhood. Yes, it goes further than that. 
For the first word of Jesus is that one speech 

47 



Faith Building. 

that has come to us from his boyhood, 
"Wist ye not that I must be about my 
Father's business ? M And his last word upon 
the cross was, " Father, into thy hands I com- 
mend my spirit." His first word was, " I 
have come to work for my Father." His last 
word was, "I am going to live with my 
Father," and just as a movement in a sym- 
phony will pass through many modes and 
keys with rich beauties that seem strange and 
almost foreign to the one who hears it for the 
first time, and yet through it all the one note 
is underneath, and at the last all is again in 
the key with which it started, so the life of 
Jesus is keyed to that one note of the Father- 
hood of God; it is that which gives har- 
mony to the whole life, unity to the whole 
teaching. Take that away, and all would 
go ; leave us that, and the rest will grow 
from it. 

But Jesus did something more for us than 
to teach this great truth ; he proved it to us 
also. To make a truth real to a man some- 
thing more is necessary than to put it into 
words. It must be put into life. Jesus 
showed to men the truth of the Fatherhood 
of God. He made an appeal to their own 
nature, to show them what the nature of 
God is. " If ye, then, being evil, know how 
to give good gifts to your children, how 
4 8 



The One Truth. 

much more shall your Father which is in 
heaven give good things to them that ask 
him." In that sentence we find a proof of 
God's relation to men made by an appeal to 
man's nature. This beautiful Father's in- 
stinct in you, can you account for it in any 
way except that it came from God himself? 
And that means that God must have the 
richest and fullest amount of that feeling. 

But most of all Jesus proved the truth of 
the doctrine he taught, by living all his life 
through on the basis of that truth. It is a 
great thing to teach what is true so that men 
can see it. It is far greater to live it so that 
men cannot help seeing it. Teach a truth 
never so great and powerful, and, if you 
simply teach it, men will say, V It is a fine 
theory," but teach it and live it, and men 
will say, "It is a good theory, and it will 
work." And this belief in the Fatherhood 
of God, this belief as to the power who 
sends me my every day's experience, from 
whom comes sorrow and joy, success and 
failure, sunshine and shadow, life and death, 
that he is perfect love, and that where I can- 
not see his working, where all is mystery,, 
even there love is working, and only love* 
and that some day I shall see, — this great 
truth Jesus believed, and by it he lived his 
man's life, making of it an absolutely trust- 

49 



Faith Building. 

ful life. And he lived it in the face of all 
that makes life hard to us, all that makes us 
doubt the love and Fatherhood of God, some- 
times sadly, sometimes fiercely. 

Every heart naturally wants to believe 
that God is love; but there seem facts in 
life which we cannot reconcile with that be- 
lief. Well, these facts were in the life of 
Jesus as they never have been in yours ; 
and yet he never doubted the love of the 
Father for a moment. We read Emerson's 
essays with their calm serene view of life, 
and we feel it was well enough for him to 
view life that way, in his quiet and dreamy 
home ; if he had been out in the bustle of 
daily business as I am, he might have taken 
a different strain. And so we think and say 
of many a teacher in the school of life. 
But when we come to Jesus the Christ we 
are silent. For he lived in the hardest of 
our conditions ; and yet his song was ever 
of the love of God, and the peace of God, 
and the kindness and goodness of the 
Father who arranges it all. What is there in 
your life that makes it hard to think of God 
as the loving Father which did not come to 
him tenfold ? You say, " I cannot believe 
God is the Father when I see so much evil 
in the world." But did Jesus see sin with 
less clear vision than you do ? Did he 
50 



The One Truth. 

shrink from it less than you do ? And yet, 
though every sight of sin was a wound to the 
sensitive soul of the sinless man, he never 
doubted the Fatherly love of God because of 
the sin of man. He saw that just because 
God was man's Father, and not merely his 
Creator, there must be the possibility of 
man's sinning. Man would not be a true 
child unless he were free to love his Father. 
He could not be free to love him unless he 
were free not to love him, and in that free- 
dom not to love lies the possibility of sin. 
In that fact of God's Fatherhood lies also the 
reason for the continuance of sin. If man 
were merely an instrument of God, God 
might crush him and his sin, and so stop 
it. But just because God is a Father, and 
man his son, God suffers when man sins, 
and bears with him, and pleads with him, 
and so the evil continues, but only that God 
may struggle with it, and finally save man 
from it. Jesus saw the fact of evil, as you 
cannot see it, with awful vividness. And 
yet he never doubted the Fatherhood of 
God. 

Sometimes it is the fact of the farness of 
God from our nature that makes us doubt 
his love and Fatherhood. We cannot find 
him ; we seem to pray into a great void, that 
sends no answer back, unless a hollow echo. 
51 



Faith Building. 

We think, if God were my Father, would he 
not make himself known to me ? And yet 
Jesus believed that God was the Father, 
though he passed through that same valley 
of uncertainty, of feeling that God was far 
from him, through which you have passed. 
When he cried, " My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ?" he felt, what every 
man feels at some time, the distance between 
himself and God. And yet even then he 
knew that God was his Father, and, spite of 
the distance, he said a moment after, 
" Father, into thy hands I commend my 
spirit." 

Or is it trial, the sorrow of life, that makes 
it hard for you to believe in the Fatherhood 
and love of God? I believe that this has 
more weight than the other facts of which 
we have been speaking. " How can God be 
my Father, how can he love me, and let such 
trials come to me ? How can he love me 
and send such experiences into my life?" 
That was Job's cry, and that is the cry of 
many a heart that wants to rest in God's care 
and cannot. But look at the life of Jesus. 
He was the man of sorrows. He knew dis- 
appointment as you never can know it. He 
knew failure as you can hardly imagine it. 
He knew the grief of personal loss and lone- 
liness as few men have felt it ; every sorrow 
52 



The One Truth. 

that comes to a human heart came to his hu- 
man heart ; and yet in and through it all he 
said with unfaltering voice, God is love; 
the Father is ruling and all must be well. 
He prayed to have the cup pass from him. 
He prayed to have the hour go by without 
his bearing the agony that came with it, and 
yet when God let the hour come, when the 
cup was put to his lips, he drank it, and said, 
God is love. 

The life of Jesus forever proves the truth 
his words teach. When he tells us that God 
is the Father; that the One who sends us our 
life, every part of it, is One who loves us, and 
loves most tenderly, when, to our poor sight, 
He seems to be wounding us most painfully ; 
when he tells us that, it is not the word of 
one who does not know, it is the word of 
One who suffered being tried, who bore the 
same sorrows that break the hearts of men 
and women, the words of a man who died of 
a broken heart, the words of our brother, 
who lived our life, and therefore we can 
take them as true and good words; the 
greatest teacher God has sent, in the face of 
the hardest experience man has lived, taught 
without wavering or doubting, that God is 
man's Father, and all his works are done 
in love — cannot we believe it ? 

If only we do believe this one truth, what- 

53 



Faith Building. 

ever else we may not believe just now, we 
shall have a firm basis upon which faith and 
life may rest. Here is the first stone to lay 
on the foundation. We come to Jesus to be 
taught, and the first thing he teaches is this 
lesson of the absolute love of God. Learn 
that and you have something by which to 
hold, whatever comes. Learn that, and little 
by little the Spirit will guide you into all the 
truth which came with Jesus. It is the one 
truth in which belief is necessary for any true 
Christian thinking or living. It lights up 
life and death with the glory of the eternal, 
the glory which shines around the life of 
Jesus. The one who is sure of the love of 
God, the Father, finds the secret which 
Isaiah found in the midst of his stormy and 
painful life : " Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: be- 
cause he trusteth in thee."* 

*I am indebted largely to Fairbairn's The Place of 
Christ in Modern Theology for what is said above 
about the Fatherhood of God. 



54 



IV. 

THE ONE DUTY. 

W HAT answer does Jesus give to the 
question, What ought I to do ? Does he give 
us one comprehensive statement of duty, as 
he gave one fundamental truth ? Yes, there 
is one seed-thought of action, as there was 
one seed-thought of faith, which, if received 
into an honest and good heart, will grow into 
a guide for the whole life. What is it ? The 
all-important duty is to do the will of God. 

What does Jesus teach us about this one 
thing to do ? He shows us the importance 
of it. 

All through his words there stands out this 
as the one thing his followers must do. So 
important is it that he makes it the condition 
of entering his kingdom : " Not every one 
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter 
into the kingdom of heaven; but he that 
doeth the will of my Father which is in 
heaven." Then he went on to say that the 
one who did the will of God was like one 
who built upon the rock, while the one who 
merely heard and did not obey was like the 

55 



Faith Building. 

builder who, without a foundation, built a 
house upon the sand. It is very clear from 
these words that he thought of doing God's 
will as something without which a true life 
could neither start nor go on. 

But even more clear is the evidence to the 
importance of this duty which comes from the 
life of Jesus. James Russell Lowell has well 
said that words count for little, but that 
" when a man makes a gift of his daily life 
and practice," then it is evident that the 
truth, whatever it be, has taken hold upon 
him. We can see what this idea of doing 
God's will as the one great end of life meant 
to Christ, by seeing how fully he made to it 
the gift of his daily life and practice. 

The basis of all his action was his endeavor 
to do the will of God. There were many 
times when he would wait, though it seemed 
to others that he ought to work ; disciples 
would urge him on ; many would fall away 
from him through impatience over his slow- 
ness of working ; his great forerunner, who 
had pointed him out to the first disciples, 
might send to ask if he were really the 
Messiah. Men might urge him, and wonder 
at his slow way of working. There was just 
one answer, " Mine hour is not yet come." 
And that meant that the Father was not 
ready for that work yet, and therefore he 
56 



The One Duty. 

would wait till the will of God was clear. 
And then when once the will of the Father 
was clear to him, what could stop or hinder 
him? Herod sent to tell him to leave his 
dominions or he would kill him ; with sub- 
lime indifference he sent back the word that 
he would preach still some days in those 
parts, and then would go to Jerusalem. 
When the great men of the nation opposed 
him he went calmly on in the way that was 
open to him, as if there were no one in the 
way. He would wait patiently for the will of 
God ; and once that was clear, he would wait 
for nothing else, but would go in the way of 
that will, though it were the way that led 
through Gethsemane and to the hill of the 
cross. 

His whole satisfaction was in finding out 
the will of God, and then doing it with his 
might. Do you remember when once the 
disciples pressed him to eat something, how 
he answered, M I have meat to eat that ye 
know not of;" and when they wondered 
what he meant, how he said again, "My 
meat is to do the will of him that sent me, 
and to finish his work." What a light that 
sheds on the importance which Jesus gave to 
this matter of doing the will of God. He 
made it the one thing in his life ; and thus he 
taught it more plainly than words could 

57 



Faith Building. 

bring it out, as the rule for the life of all his 
followers. There is just one thing for the 
Christian to do, one simple, sublime, difficult 
thing ; and that is, the will of God ; other 
duties grow out of that as the tree out of the 
germ. 

But there is another question that goes 
with this one, of what we are to do. It is, 
how are we to do it ? It is not always easy 
for one to know what is the will of God. 
How can we know it ? In the old days if we 
are to believe the Scripture narrative, God 
spoke to men, sent angels to tell them what 
to do, revealed himself in dreams to them. 
Such messages do not come to us. It is well 
enough to say that our one duty is to do 
God's will, but we cannot do it till we know 
it, and the practical difficulty is to find out 
what it is. Now one of the most helpful 
things about the teaching of Jesus on this 
point is that he not only shows us the import- 
ance of doing the will of God ; he also shows 
us something of what doing God's will 
means. 

Looking at the life of Jesus, we find that 
doing God's will means taking the principles 
God gives us as our rules. 

I do not suppose there is a man or a 
woman who would not acknowledge that 
there are some things which God reveals as 
58 



The One Duty. 

the right principles. You may find them in 
one place and I in another, but each of us is 
sure of some things that come from God as 
principles of right living. Some of us come 
to the Bible and take the thoughts that we 
find there as the principles which God has 
given to be the guide for true human life. 
Perhaps some of you do not feel that you 
can take the Bible as your guide. You may 
not feel sure that it is the Word of God. 
Well, even so, there are some- things you 
know are right and others which you know 
are wrong. Your conscience, though it may 
be a poor guide, is yet a true one so far as it 
goes, true enough to show you, so that you 
believe it, that some things are right and 
others wrong. Now you know .that the will 
of God is that you should do those right 
things, and not do the wrong things, that the 
principles which you know to be good should 
be your guides. 

But doing the will of God is vastly more 
than accepting as true the principles which 
you find in the Bible and in your conscience. 
It is not enough for you to say, I ought to be 
true, I ought to be pure, I ought to be honest, 
I ought to be Christ-like. If you are to do 
God's will for you, you must ask and answer 
the question, in what special place and way 
does God want me to be true, and pure, and 

59 



Faith Building. 

honest and Christ-like ? Where will you find 
the answer to that ? There is just one place 
where you find God's will for you, and that 
is, in the ordering of your life. There is a 
part of your life and its surroundings which 
is your own. You can change it ; you are 
responsible for it. But there is a part of it 
for which you are not responsible, which you 
cannot change. Each thing of that kind, 
each part of your life which is out of your 
own control, each circumstance, help, hin- 
drance, open door, closed way, difficulty, 
inspiration, comes from God ; it is all his 
will for you. Our life, not of course as we 
fashion it, but as we receive it from the hand 
of God, is a revelation to us of the will of 
God. It comes from him, does it not ? 

This does not mean that we should meekly 
fall in with what comes to us, that, if we be- 
gin a good work, and find things in the way, 
we should at once give it up and say, "My 
life does not work that way, and, therefore, 
it is not the will of God that I should do this 
or that." The man who starts to be abso- 
lutely honest and high-minded in business, 
and comes to a place where honesty and 
high-mindedness will mean more or less of 
failure, and the opposite action will mean 
sure success, has no right to say, " The will 
of God is that I should not be thus honest 
60 



The One Duty. 

and high-minded.' * If he says that, he is 
not doing the will of God, he is shirking it. 
God sends us our life, but he sends us some 
things to fight as well as some to welcome ; 
some things that tend to make us fail as well 
as some that tend to make us succeed. 

There are two ways in which God reveals 
his will to you, and you must find it through 
both of them together. The principles by 
which you ought to live are in the Bible as 
your conscience appropriates it ; the sphere 
in which you are to work them out is in your 
daily life as God sends it to you. Take the 
principles and live by them in the circum- 
stances God sends ; and remember that both 
are God's will for you ; that his will is that 
you should do the one in the midst of the 
other. Compass and chart are the impor- 
tant things for the safety of a vessel. But 
the captain must use them in view of the 
things that are round about his ship. He 
must take note of storm and wind and of the 
condition of his boat, if he is to bring her in 
safely. The man who sees God's will 
merely in his life and circumstances, is a 
captain without chart or compass. The 
man who sees God's will only in the Bible 
is a captain who studies his chart but does 
not mind wind and wave, cloud or sun, 
who goes on regardless alike of the con- 

61 



Faith Building. 

ditions and needs of his craft. Neither one 
is wise. 

The God who sent you the Bible, who has 
given you your conscience, is the same One 
who sends you your every-day life. Your 
way, my way, the true way for every man 
and woman to carry out the will of God, is 
to carry out the principles in the midst of the 
circumstances. Both come from God. The 
one is as much his will as the other. 

We are so apt to forget that the God who 
gave us the Bible is the God who gives us 
our life ; that the Spirit who gave the apos- 
tles and prophets each thought in this book, 
is one with the Father who plans each day 
for each man. Have you never had such a 
feeling as this : I cannot do the will of God 
as I would, because of this thing or that in 
my life ? How many a weary, hard-worked, 
sorrow-burdened soul, has longed for a time 
when it could do the will of God, saying, " I 
cannot do God's will now, because my life 
forbids." But who arranged that life ? Who 
put you where you are ? If God has done 
it, then that life of yours is as much God's 
will for you as this Bible is, as much his will 
for you as preaching the gospel would be, if 
he sent you the chance to do that. If God 
sends difficulties it is because his will for you 
is that you should fight ; if God sends trials, 
62 



The One Duty. 

it is because his will for you is that you 
should bear and endure ; if God sends the 
conditions of success to you it is because his 
will for you is that you should be successful 
and happy. It is better to be happy than to 
be sorrowful ; but sorrow that comes through 
the will of God is better than happiness that 
comes in any other way. Get hold of the 
principles and ideals which God has given 
to guide the life of men, and then every day 
take the things of the day as God's will for 
you, and do your best to work something of 
the ideals into the life; then you will be 
doing God's will for you. 

This is what we find when we ask the life 
of Jesus what it means to do the will of God. 
We find in him the spirit that takes every 
day what comes as from the Father and 
makes the best of it. He knew what was 
the true ideal of life as God thought of it, 
and he lived and worked for that. And 
every day, if God sent him what would 
further his endeavor to live for the princi- 
ples of the divine life, he took it and was 
glad and made the most of it ; but if God 
saw fit to send him what hindered and 
thwarted his work, what made his life seem 
a failure, then he stood up to the trial man- 
fully, strongly and carried his ideal in the 
face of the thing that opposed it, still know- 
63 



Faith Building. 

ing that what the hard day brought was the will 
of God no less than what the easy one brought; 
and that in the struggle against that which was 
hard he was doing God's will no less than in 
the triumphant use of that which was easy. 

When the men he eagerly wanted to reach 
turned away from him, when the leaders re- 
jected him, he said : " I thank thee, O Father, 
Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid 
these things from the wise and prudent and 
hast revealed them unto babes ; even so, 
Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." 
When God brought a great crowd around 
him so that they pressed upon him, he 
rejoiced and worked for them ; but when 
God led him to Jacob's well, and one 
woman only was there to be helped, he re- 
joiced and did the work which the will of 
God had for him to do there, just as if there 
had been thousands to be reached by it. He 
gave thanks when he broke bread ; but he 
also gave thanks when there was no bread 
to break, when he had not where to lay his 
head. Doing the will of God was an every- 
day, all-day matter to him. It was the 
thing for which his life was given him, the 
one end and aim of his earthly experience. 
"Thy will be done on earth " was what he 
taught his followers to pray and by that 
prayer he lived. 

6 4 



The One Duty. 

This one duty depends upon the one trutb 
which Jesus teaches us. We are to do the 
will of God because God is our Father. The 
reason Jesus could take whatever came and 
give thanks was because life to him was the 
will of the Father and he knew the Father was 
love. It was not that joy and sorrow were 
indifferent to him ; to him, as to you, sorrow 
meant pain and trouble and perplexity. 
And yet, so sure was he of his Father, that, 
even in the midst of the pain and perplexity 
of the worst of sorrows, he could take what 
life brought as best and right, because he 
was sure that God was good. If one be- 
lieves heartily that God who sends us our 
daily life is the Father who loves us, then 
doing the will of God is for him the only 
thing worth doing. There is the simple, 
grand programme for the life of the follower 
of Jesus. And what a programme it is. 
How all other duties grow out of it. How 
it dignifies daily life to bring God into it alL 
If we said of all that comes, " Here is God's 
will for me for this moment ; let me make 
the most of it," what a life we would 
lead ! We cannot enjoy all that the Father 
sends us ; we cannot understand all that he 
sends. Many things were painful to Jesus 
which yet he knew were the will of the 
Father ; " Even so, Father, for so it seemed 
65 



Faith Building. 

good in thy sight," was enough for him to 
understand about much that came to him. 
But we can take it all, as he did, as the will 
of God our Father. God is my Father ; all 
of my life is his will for me ; I am here to do 
that will ; there is a simple, practical faith, 
which is enough, if believed with all your 
heart, to make your life strong, manly, 
Christian. 



66 



V. 



THE CONDITIONS OF 

PROGRESS. 

1 HE one who starts to build a Christian 
faith is beginning a long and a great task. 
There is much to study, and much thinking 
to be done. There are many teachings of 
Jesus about faith and duty ; each of us must 
find them out for himself. We have seen 
what is the One Thing to Believe and what 
the One Thing to Do. We thus have a 
basis for faith, and the work of building it is 
one which we must do for ourselves. But it 
may be helpful to state some of the condi- 
tions of progress into truth. How*can we be 
sure of going right? How can we know 
that, as we go on, we are in the way of true 
progress ? There are certain simple condi- 
tions which it may help us to state clearly. 

First of all, if you would grow into more 
truth, you must hold fast the great starting 
truths. It is not enough to have believed 
them once. You must keep tight hold of 
them ; every day you must take a fresh grip 
on them, make them more than ever your 
67 



Faith Building. 

own, keep them strong, living, active in your 
mind and heart ; only so can you find more 
light. Do you remember what Jesus gave as 
the condition of his manifesting himself to 
the disciples as he did not to the world ? 
" If a man love me he will keep my words, 
and then I will come and make my abode 
with him." If we want to have the Spirit of 
all truth with us more and more we must 
keep the words of Jesus. 

There is a tendency in our minds to think 
that we grow in faith through giving up one 
truth for another. We start with one great 
fact ; we get all there is in that for us to rest 
our faith and our practice upon, and then 
we let go of it for another ; as the athlete 
uses the flying rings ; he starts with one, lets 
it carry him as far as it can, then seizes 
another, and lets the first one go, and so on. 
He never has hold of more than two, some- 
times only one. It is progress through letting 
go. We think the advance into faith is 
made that way. Or as the coral insects 
build the reef; one builds and then dies, and 
another builds on the work of the first. So 
our beliefs, we are apt to think, live and 
crystallize, and form a basis for new ones. 
But such is not the way with true faith. Real 
vital faith takes the starting truths and keeps 
them ever living ; and then out of them it 

68 



The Conditions of Progress. 

develops new truth. It is like the growth of 
a tree, in which every living cell produces 
others, while all go on and live, all are parts 
of the living organism, though some are 
hard and firm within, and give stability, 
while others are just forming, and thrilling 
with the new life. 

The first essential to growth in Christian 
faith is holding to what Christian faith you 
already have. If you believe that Jesus is 
your Master, if you believe that God is your 
Father, if you believe that there is just one 
thing for you to do in this world, and that 
to do the will of God, hold those beliefs with 
the tightest grip your mind can give. There 
are two thoughts in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews which are very suggestive right 
here. 

One of them is that exhortation to give 
earnest heed to the things which we have 
heard, lest at any time we should drift away 
from them. How striking is that figure ! 
You may be asleep in the boat, or not watch- 
ing the shore ; all seems motionless ; sud- 
denly you wake, and find yourself already 
some way from land, gliding rapidly down 
stream; and it means work to get back. 
You need to moor yourself tightly to every 
truth you find, or you will drift away from it. 

The other expression in the Epistle is that 
6 9 



Faith Building. 

which tells us that we are made partakers of 
Christ if we hold the beginning of our faith 
steadfast unto the end. We must hold fast 
the beginning of our faith, the starting 
truths, firm unto the end, if we want to be as 
Christ was, in our belief and our duty. The 
very first essential to growth into truth is to 
hold fast what truth we have now. Start 
every day with the knowledge that one thing 
is sure ; begin every day of your life with the 
knowledge that God is your Father. Renew 
every day your consciousness that there is 
for you one thing, just one, to do, and that is 
the will of God, as he shows it to you that 
day. No matter how much more may come 
to you, in the way of truth and duty, hold 
these two fast. If you always keep hold 
with one hand of these great starting prin- 
ciples, you will gain far more in the end 
than if you seize the new truth with both 
hands and thus let the old go altogether. 
Keep these two great foundation elements in 
your thought and the life of Jesus in your 
sight all the time. One summer I was with 
a party which spent some time on one of the 
Thousand Islands, three miles from the 
nearest town. Sometimes we would have to 
row over to town in the darkness ; the 
islands all around shut out the light, except 
that from a single electric lamp. We would 
70 



The Conditions of Progress. 

steer for that ; gradually, as we went on, 
other lights would shine out, till before long 
the whole way was illuminated. But when 
the lights were gleaming most brightly, we 
would not lose sight of that one lamp, but 
would still steer by it. So is it with these 
truths. Thank God for all the new light on 
truth and duty ; but keep the starting truths 
to steer by. 

Another condition of progress into the 
truth is that you seek earnestly and honestly 
for more light and truth. You will be the 
better off for more, for all you can get. 
Every new truth that proves itself to a man 
makes him that much stronger, and his life 
that much richer. You ought to desire to 
have all the real living truth you can get. 
And if you are to get it, you will have to do 
more than hold to the first truths ; you must 
also seek earnestly and honestly for more. 

Earnestly, I say. That is, you must make 
a business of it — really search for truth. Go 
to the words of Jesus and study them, find 
out what they say ; see what Peter and Paul 
and John have to say in explanation of the 
words and life of Jesus. Men sometimes 
stumble on good things ; but oftenest, the 
men who get what is good here are the men 
who have sought it, who have put something 
of their life energy into the search for it. 
71 



Faith Building. 

The promise does not read, " Desire, and you 
shall find;" still less does it say, " Just go on 
and you shall stumble on theitruth." It says, 
"Seek, and ye shall find." I think a good 
many men wonder that they do not find the 
truth, when they hardly think of seeking for 
it. Many times when men and women have 
said to me, " I have so little faith ; I know 
so little what to believe," have I wanted to 
answer, "How much do you seek?" It is 
true that every good gift and every perfect 
gift comes down from the Father of lights, 
but it is equally true that those good gifts 
come to the one who earnestly tries to get 
them. Here is a man who wants to have a 
thorough knowledge of mathematics. He 
says to you, " I cannot understand why I do 
not know more about the principles of ma- 
thematics ; I want to do it ; I think about it, 
and wish I knew about it, but somehow my 
knowledge does not grow at all, spite of my 
wishing." You would say to him, "But 
how much do you study?" And then he 
would answer, "Oh, I read a chapter every 
morning, unless something interferes." You 
would say, " My dear fellow, how can you 
expect to grow in your knowledge of mathe- 
matics, if you do not study it ? The trouble 
with you is, you do not seek to know. You 
want to, but you do not seek to." Is not that 
72 



The Conditions of Progress. 

often the way with those who wonder about 
the smallness of their faith ? They want, 
but they do not seek. Did you ever know 
an earnest student of the gospels who did 
not have a faith that was real and living and 
growing? You cannot find many of them. 
But again, you must seek honestly. What 
do I mean by that ? I mean that you must 
go to the work with the determination to take 
just what truth is shown you there. It may 
cut across your plans ; no matter, take it. 
It may upset your notions and views ; never 
mind, you are seeking the truth as Jesus 
taught it, and here it is ; take it, whatever it 
is. It may be hard to harmonize with your 
own pleasures, or views, or ideas, but if you 
are really seeking to find the truth which 
Jesus has for you, you cannot pick and 
choose ; you must take what he gives. When 
you are reading for pleasure, you can skip as 
you choose, picking out what you like. When 
you are reading for business, you have to read 
it all, and take it all, or you may not get any 
of it as you should. The follower of Christ 
should search the gospels for business, to 
find the truths to guide him in the one great 
business of his life, finding Christlikeness in 
character and work. The Jews searched very 
earnestly. Jesus said to them, " Ye search 
the Scriptures." But they did not search 

73 



Faith Building. 

honestly. They found them testifying of 
Christ, and yet they would not come to him. 
They told Nicodemus to search and see what 
the Scriptures had to say about the Messiah; 
but they told him just what he must find 
there, and he knew it would not be safe to 
find in the writings anything but what the 
scribes said he ought to find there. And so, 
searching earnestly, but dishonestly, they 
found what they wanted, but not what they 
needed. If you want to find God's truth, 
you must search candidly. Seek earnestly 
and honestly and you will find. 

But perhaps most important of all the con- 
ditions of progress into truth is this : work 
into your life the truth you find. The surest 
way to have truth grow and expand is to put 
it to use. It is like the muscles of your 
body. Use them and they will grow ; try to 
save them and they will shrink and lose 
their power. If the outlet to the mill from 
the hopper is clogged you will very soon 
find that more grain cannot be poured in. 
The outlet from your mind to your life must 
be open and free, so that the truth can pass 
into action, if more truth is to enter in. 

God gives you truth to believe, in order 
that you may use it as food for your will, as 
material for action. If you keep it stored in 
your mind he will not give you more ; but if 

74 



The Conditions of Progress. 

you use it and work it into your life then 
more will surely come. The condition of 
more light is walking towards the light you 
see. 

The Jews wanted to know the truth. They 
asked, and very naturally, " How can we be 
sure about this man and his claims ? Here 
is a man from Nazareth, brought up in lowly 
life ; how can we know that he is the Mes- 
siah ?" What did Jesus answer ? Did he 
tell them to examine and see ? Sometimes 
he did. But far oftener he said to them that 
if they would earnestly live by what they 
knew they would see the truth. It was be- 
cause they were hypocrites, men who did 
not deal fairly with what truth they had, that 
they could not see rightly. The most char- 
acteristic words of Christ to them were : " If 
any man willeth to do his will, he shall know 
of the teaching, whether it be of God, or 
whether I speak of myself." Do God's will 
as you already know it ; then other truth 
will be plain to you. 

And so the great thing is that you should 
take what you are sure of now and work it 
into your life; then other truth will come 
surely. As you search the words of Jesus 
for directions about your life you will find 
something which appeals to you ; you will 
say, whatever else may be doubtful, this at 

75 



Faith Building, 

any rate is sure, and is for me to believe and 
to act upon. Well, take that one thing and 
live by it awhile. Get it not only well in 
mind, not only by heart, as we say, so that 
you can repeat it, but get it so by life that 
you will act by it, and then you will find 
something else to be true also ; then live by 
that, and so on. God gives more truth to the 
man who uses what he has of truth already. 

Truth in the mind is grain stored in the 
granary ; it may keep there for an indefinite 
time without deterioration. But truth in the 
life is grain sown ; it will spring up and bear 
fruit, thirty, sixty, a hundredfold. 

Any one who starts with the foundations 
of Christian faith and then observes these 
conditions, holding fast what is sure, seeking 
to know more, and patiently working into 
the life what becomes clear to the mind, will 
grow into the truth more and more under the 
guidance of the promised Spirit. 

And now, as we close these simple and 
rudimentary thoughts on a subject so vast 
that our whole life is not long enough to ex- 
haust it, let us return to that with which 
we started ; for the one thing above all else 
to which man's mind and life must cling is 
Christ himself. Christ and Christ only is 
the religion of Christians. Your faith must 
rest in him ; your life must be built on him. 
76 



The Conditions of Progress. 

The one essential thing is not theology ; it is 
not conscience ; it is not the Bible ; the one 
essential thing, to which conscience, and 
creed, and Bible, do homage, is Christ, the 
only Master of Christians. Get your life- 
ideals from him ; test all truth by him ; 
cling to him. 

Once Jesus was teaching strange and new 
truths. Many stumbled at them, and left 
him, went back to their homes. Jesus asked 
the twelve, " Will ye also go away ?" Peter 
answered for them, "Lord, to whom shall 
we go? Thou hast the words of eternal 
life." There was much that was dark to 
them. But one thing they did know ; Jesus 
had the words of eternal life and they would 
come to him for those words, learn them one 
by one and live them one by one, for only 
in such simple reliance upon him as Teacher 
and Master could they find the principle of 
true living. Have that kind of faith. Put 
Christ above all else. Make him the cen- 
tre, the sum, the end, of your thinking, your 
speaking, your acting. Then even your 
little faith will be truly Christian and will 
grow to be more and more. For he is the 
wisdom of God, and the power of God, and 
all living faith draws its life from him. 



77 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



